The moment LeBron James dropped to the hardwood at Oracle Arena and pounded the floor with his right fist, fans flooded the streets of downtown Cleveland.

They streamed out of Quicken Loans Arena, raced out of their apartments, ditched the suds-less bars, long tapped out of their alcohol supply.

E. 4th Street was packed like a giant sardine can, with no wiggle room and no worries. Fans stood atop flimsy railings to try to better their view. Of what, exactly? Who knows? Who cared? There was no crash course for this, no instruction manual for how to react in the wake of a long-awaited championship. Not in Cleveland, where it hadn’t happened in 52 years, and even then, when the Browns bested the Baltimore Colts by 27 points on a late-December afternoon, it didn’t happen like this.

This was a euphoric celebration and the happiest funeral on record, with the burial of the infamous curse and the overplayed montage of Cleveland meltdowns and the jokes about the...